Pragmatic Research on Educational Practice

Paper in proceeding, 2023

During a round table discussion at a collegial conference on teaching and learning, a focus group with 12 teachers from a technical university discuss challenges with studying their own teaching practice. Furthermore, a concept called PREP – Pragmatic Research on Educational Practice, with the goal of engaging engineering educators in studying, documenting, and sharing their initiatives to improve teaching practices, is introduced and discussed. Among the main obstacles to researching their own teaching practice, the participants pointed to a lack of time, know-how, and motivation. They expressed that there is potential in the collegial part of PREP and the time efficiency of using what can be studied during a course. The role of PREP studies, in
relation to regular educational research, is also discussed, and that PREP may be perceived as a devaluation of educational science was problematized. Some participants felt that it was very likely that they would participate in a PREP group next academic year if given the opportunity.